Apparatus for removing lint from laundry drier exhaust



Dec. 13, 1955 v. SCHLEYER ET AL 2,725,353

APPARATUS FOR REMOVING LINT FROM LAUNDRY DRIER EXHAUST Filed Dec. 13, 1951 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTORS Vyc'ro re 5cm LETER,

OP/YE 75.

Dec. 13, 1955 v. SCHLEYER ET AL 2,725,353

APPARATUS FOR REMOVING LINT FROM LAUNDRY DRIER EXHAUST Filed Dec. 13, 1951 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 IN VEN TORJ Vic-"rare 5c HL EYEE, Jack L. HEMP/6K5 and Poaser Po flax 756,

M M V I I/CJE/YEXS,

United States Patent APPARATUS FOR REMOVING LINT FROM LAUNDRY DRIER EXHAUST Victor Schleyer, Jack L. Henricks, and Robert Roy Baxter,

Anderson, Ind., assignors to E. C. Schleyer Pump Company Inc., Anderson, Ind., a corporation of Indiana Application December 13, 1951, Serial No. 261,402

1 Claim. (Cl. 261--5) This invention relates especially to apparatus for removing lint from the drying air discharge stream from a laundry drier. In more general aspects, it relates to apparatus for removing suspended solids from a stream of gas and these more general aspects may be illustrated by reference to the laundry drier application.

In a laundry drier, clothes or other textile articles are tumbled in a rotating drum within a closed casing, and a stream of heated air is passed or blown through the casing and the articles being dried. The exhaust air from the drier normally contains a considerable quantity of lint from the textiles being dried, and when industrial work clothes and wiping clothes are laundered, the exhaust air also contains metal particles which are air borne with the lint. In large commercial establishments with one or a battery of driers operating substantially continuously, the presence of the lint and other particles in the exhaust air presents a serious problem, for if it is not removed it becomes a serious nuisance throughout the whole neighborhood surrounding the laundry. The lint is light, of small particle size, and easily air-borne; and considerable difliculty has been experienced in attempting to remove or collect it. Attempts have been made to collect it in filter bags, but this requires bags of extremely large dimensions and requires frequent cleaning of the bags. Moreover, the light and fluffy character of the collected lint makes it bulky and diflicult to handle.

It is an object of our invention to provide a method and apparatus which efliciently removes suspended particles from a stream of gas, especially one which efficiently removes lint from the exhaust stream from a laundry drier. It is an object of our invention to provide such a method and apparatus which collects the particles, for example the lint, in a substantially solid mass for ready disposal. It is an object of our invention to combine such apparatus with a laundry drier, in a combination which completely overcomes and eliminates the nuisance of airborne lint in the discharge stream from the laundry drier.

In accordance with our invention we conduct the lintladen exhaust stream from one or more driers to the bottom of a casing within which we project the lintladen air in a generally radial and horizontal stream. We project in the same general direction but preferably at a slight angle of convergence with the stream of air, a radial stream or sheet of finely divided or atomized liquid, conveniently water. (By radial stream we mean to include one having a considerable swirl, for in the preferred form of our invention the radially moving streams have a strong component of swirl.) The casing is preferably of conical form with its conical sidewall in position to be impinged forcibly by the converging streams of air and water, and the wall is inclined to deflect the streams downward. The air outlet from the casing is at the top, above the stream of water, and the water drain is from the bottom, below the projected stream of lint-bearing air, so that the wa- 2,726,853 Patented Dec. 13, 1955 ter and the air move through the casing in generally opposite directions and the two fluids cross each other to reach their discharge points.

In the radial, converging, crossing, and swirling streams, and in their impact against the downwardly deflecting walls of the casing, the air-home lint is thoroughly wetted, so that it is removed from the air and is carried with the water to the bottom of the casing, from which it is drained or flushed through discharge openings. The wet lint is easily removed from the watcr with a simple coarse filter, and we preferably filter the discharge stream through a simple disposable container, such as a burlap sack, and permit the water to drain through and from it. The wet lint collects in the bag and when the bag is full, the bag containing the substantially solid mass of lint is suitably disposed of, and a new disposable bag is put in receiving position.

The accompanying drawing illustrates our invention. In such drawing, Fig. 1 is a vertical sectional view of apparatus embodying our invention as applied to remove lint from the exhaust stream from a battery of laundry driers; and Fig. 2 is a horizontal section taken on the line 2-2 of Fig. 1.

In the apparatus shown in the drawing, the laundry driers 10 are conventional. Each comprises a housing containing a perforated rotating drum in which the clothes or other textile articles are tumbled during the drying operation. Air is supplied to the drier through a heater 14, and is forced through the drier by a blower 12. The discharge air leaves the drier through the blower outlet, which is connected, either alone or with other driers, to one of the ducts 18 leading to the lintremoving apparatus.

The lint-removing apparatus comprises an upper casing member 20 of generally conical form and having a top air outlet 24, and a bottom casing member 22 of annular form. The center of the bottom 22 contains an air inlet 26 surrounded by generally upright walls 28, to which the ducts 18 are connected. Within the inlet opening 26 there is journalled a shaft 39 driven by a motor 34. The upper end of the shaft 30 carries a disklike rotor 40 preferably having a fiat upper face. To form a blower coaxial with the rotor 49, the rotor disk carries on its lower surface a peripheral series of blower blades 42 which desirably extend into close proximity with the rim at the upper end of the inlet walls 28. A water supply pipe 46 enters the casing through a wall thereof and terminates in a downwardly discharging nipple 48 concentric with the disk 40 and spaced slightly above that disk 40. The bottom casing member 22 forms an annular trough to collect the wet lint which is carried downward with the water admitted through the nipple 48. Preferably, the outer wall of the casing 22 carries nozzles 60 generally tangential to the annular trough. These are connected to water supply pipes 62 and project flushing streams of water around the lint collecting trough. Discharge outlets 50 for the water and lint open through the bottom 22, and preferably lead to fittings 52 to which disposable bags 54 can be readily attached. Each bag 54 may be contained in a tank 56 having a lower drain opening 58 to drain water therefrom.

In the operation of the apparatus, the disk 40 is driven at high speed, say 3600 R. P. M., and a stream of water is discharged downwardly onto its upper surface from the nipple 48. The water falls onto the center of the flat upper surface of the disk 40, spreads over the rotating disk, and is projected from its periphery in a radial expanding sheet-like stream, in which the Water is finely divided or atomized. The stream of exhaust air from the drier, carrying with it the suspended lint (or other solid particles), enters the casing 20 through the inlet 26, en-

ters the blades 42, and is projected by them in a radial the casing and are flushed'out through-the drain conduit 50. The air, from which the suspended particles have now been removed, moves generally upwardly through the casing 20 and is discharged through the top outlet 24.

'It is to be noted that the air is projected in an outwardly expanding stream into convergence from below with the expanding stream of water, and that the air is discharged upwardly at a point beyond the stream of 'water, while the water is discharged downwardly at a point below the stream of air. The airand water thus travel in generally opposite'directions through the'casing 20 so that they cross each other, and during their crossing they are thoroughly mixed by their'forcible projec- 'tion in converging streams and by the impingement of 'themixed and swirling streams against the deflecting Wall.

The deflecting wall is desirablyinclined as shown in the drawing, at an angle to the direction of the streams, and

with such a relation to the streams that it deflects the streams downwardly, away from the air outlet 24.

Despite the ,fact that lint in an exhaust stream from a textile, drier is normally difiicult towet, we find that under the conditions produced in accordance with our invention, the lint is thoroughly wetted and caused to drop to the bottom of the casing with the water, and that it is elficiently removed from the stream of air.

The liquid mixture which is discharged drains from the bottom of the casing 20 through the drain outlet 50 carries with it the lint removed from the air, and when this mixture is discharged into the disposable bag '54, the wet'lint is readily strained from the liquid, even by a relatively coarse strainer such as a burlap bag. The water, howeveig'drains freely from the bag, and the bag 54' collects a substantially solid wet mass of lint. When the bag 54 is filled, it is removed from the fitting 52 and replaced by a fresh bag. The filled bag can be tied and carried away as a unitlfor disposal.

While in one aspect our invention is directed to lint V removal from laundry drier exhaust, in more general aspects it is also applicable to removal of other solids than lint from streams of air or gas, and in such more general aspects our showing of it for lint removal is by way of illustration and not of limitation. I

We claim as our invention:

In a device for removing finely-divided and dificultly wetable air-borne textile lint from the air stream of a laundry drier exhaust or the like, a blower and rotor coaxial on a vertical axis,-said rotor havinga radial face positioned above the blower, conduit means for conducting the air' stream to the blower inlet,means to feed water to the radial face of the rotor whereby said rotor .discharges a radial sheet-like stream of water, said blower being arranged to discharge radially at a slight upward angle into convergence with said water stream, and casing means including a downwardly inclined conical wall coaxial with said blower and rotor and positioned to be forcibly impinged by the streams of air and water discharged from said blower and rotor, an air outlet above said rotor, a collecting chamber below the .zone of im- 7 pingement 'anddefined by a cylindrical wall extending downwardly from the base' of said conical 'wall, an open discharge conduit to discharge lint-laden waterfrom the bottom of said chamber, means to discharge a stream of additional water ,interiorly of and tangentially to said cylindrical 'wall to mix with Water and lint which drops to said chamber from thezone of impingement, said additional-water stream being directed to flush the mixed water and lint to said discharge conduit, and means to support a disposable filter unit to receive the lint-water mixture from the conduit.

References Cited in'the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 

